Knocked out for Christ

(Photo of Matthew Lincoln from Charisma Magazine)

J. Lee Grady, the editor of a Christian Right rag called Charisma Magazine, wrote an article called "Bam! Pow! When Prayer Ministry Gets Violent."

Just when you think you've heard and seen everything, the fundys surprise you. Of course, I've watched these healer con artists on TV, and they bang someone in the head and he/she falls back to be caught, hopefully, by a couple of goons and everybody's waving their arms and talking gibberish (they call it "speaking in tongues") and then they pass the collection plate and God's will is done! Hallelujah!

It seems, though, that there is one guy here in Florida (where else?) who tends to get a bit too violent, even for the Holy Ghost! J. Lee Grady, thinks that "Lakeland Revival leader Todd Bentley's unusual prayer methods have triggered questions about Holy Spirit etiquette."

Yes, you heard me right. Adult, supposedly sane people are discussing the "etiquette" of a Holy Spirit!

Bentley heals on God TV every night and gives Jesus the credit. He just gets a bit carried away. A couple of video clips from one of his sermons have surfaced which have raised some questions about just how crazy this whacko really is.

"The sermon, preached in Lakeland and posted on YouTube, features Bentley demonstrating how he (1) banged a woman's crippled legs 'like a baseball bat' on a stage; (2) tackled, mounted and choked a man to free him from a demon; (3) shoved a Chinese man to the ground to pray for him (causing the man to lose a tooth); (4) kicked an older woman in the face with his biker boot to heal her; (5) 'leg-dropped' a pastor-a professional wrestling tactic, popularized by Hulk Hogan, in which the aggressor jumps in the air and lands on his opponent with one leg outstretched."

Bentley, a tattoed "evangelist," tends to shout "Bam! Bam!" as he prays for the sick and those who claim to have been instantly healed.

Now the story gets weird. Grady, while questioning his methods, defends the creep. He says he knows people have been healed in Lakeland. One woman got rid of cystic fibrosis just by sitting through one of Bentley's services. Another man was healed of his sleep apnea as he watched the Bentley revival on TV.

"Jesus is most definitely still in the healing business," says Grady.

But "hitting people is wrong, period!" You think?

I think the SOB ought to be in jail for assault and battery. Holy Spirit, my ass!

(The question is raised, of course, as to why in god's name Jesus can't heal people without some con man getting up on a stage, ranting and raving and beating people in the head to knock them to the floor? If there really was a Jesus in the healing business, I know lots of folks who need healing, many of them small children dying right now in hospital beds of cancer and other diseases that only the worst kind of evil tyrant would allow. Send Jesus around, OK? Have him check into the Arnold Palmer Hospital for children in Orlando or maybe the oncology ward at Shands Hospital in Gainesville.)


Which leads to another story all over the blogosphere. This one comes from Tennessee, the state of country music, moonshine, and true believers in a Jesus who can heal just about anything if you get the right evangelist in the right church.

Matthew Lincoln, a 58-year old recording engineer is suing the nondenominational Lakewind Church in Knoxville, "claiming he was severely and permanently injured when church 'catchers' failed to assist him during a prayer service last year."

This religion business is dangerous stuff!

Lincoln wants $2.5 mil because the church "catchers" did not catch him when he "fell out in the spirit." Normally, Lakewind "typically positions altar workers behind parishioners who receive prayer to catch them in the event that they experience 'dizzying, fainting or falling in the spirit.'"

Well, they didn't catch Lincoln who says he fell backward, conked his head of the "carpet-covered cement floor with the back of his head and back." This "aggravated a degenerative disc disease in Lincoln's neck and back that he had 'reasonably recovered' from before the incident."

Not only so, but Lincoln's wife is also suing the church for $75,000 "as a 'derivative action' that resulted from the 'loss of consortium, loss of services and companionship of her husband." What, he doesn't hang around the house anymore? No more sex? He won't do the dishes?

The churchly lawyers profess the church is innocent. The church's insurance company, Zurich in North America refused the claim because "the church did not have a duty to catch him and because Lincoln's account of the incident was not completely factual."


I'd say if you're gonna mess around with a Holy Ghost you'd better be prepared for whatever happens. I also think that if god wanted Lincoln to be caught, she would have caught him. And that makes me wonder what Lincoln did to get god pissed?